Outside of the In-Crowd – Charlie Sheen might be the devil

Courtney Enlow

Hear me out.

So you’re on an elevator with the snozzberries guy who’s married to Christina Hendricks, Ryan Atwood’s brother Trey, some chick who I thought was from the trailer was the girl from Miss Congeniality but apparently isn’t, some other clowns and Charlie Sheen. Pretend you’re M. Night Shyamalan. Which one do you make the titular devil?

If you’re going for the twist, BOOM, the elevator’s the devil (I demand accolades and hugs if this turns out to be the ending). If you’re going for realism, it’s Sheen every time.

Let’s take a look at Sheen’s history of horror:

1990 - Sheen is engaged to Kelly Preston. She “accidentally” winds up shot in the arm with a revolver. They break up shortly after. Obviously. She is sent flying into the arms of Travolta and Xenu.

1994 - Sheen’s name is released as a client of Heidi Fleiss. Today, Heidi Fleiss is a completely insane drug addict with a lot of birds.

1996 - Sheen’s porn actress girlfriend accuses him of beating her and knocking her to the floor, giving her a split lip. He pleads no-contest. This is a Hollywood legal term for “I totally fucking did it.”

1998 - Sheen injects coke, because snorting is no longer getting it done quickly enough. Had his father not reported him for parole violation, the next step would have probably been shooting it directly into his brain with the revolver, lovingly called “This Is How I Got Kelly Preston To Quit Mouthing Off.”

2005 - Denise Richards files for divorce, alleging various beatings, death threats, verbal and physical abuse and intimated kiddie porn on his laptop.

2008 - Another lucky lady snatches up this winner.

2009 - He holds a knife to her throat while high on crack on Christmas Day, and is charged with felony menacing, third degree assault and criminal mischief. Happy Christmas, everyone!

Early 2010 - He goes to rehab. Because that’s what you do when your career is about to go boompoof because you’re a fuckup.

Early 2010 - The first Two and a Half Men episode to air after rehab achieves the show’s highest ratings. Sheen negotiates $1.78 million dollars per episode. I lose complete faith in humanity.

Summer 2010 - Sheen celebrates a ruling of no jailtime by hitting up the Playboy mansion, hanging out with Ron Jeremy and probably bukkake punching more nudey-shot chicks. Ron Jeremy’s Orgazmo goodwill is completely erased.

Last week, 2010 - News is released that the Christmas Day blowout erupted over the Train song “Drops of Jupiter.” My longtime Train hatred is once again justified.

Basically, this guy is a complete fuck face.

Let’s go back to the money part, because I blame YOU for this.

Sheen earns a reported $1.25 million dollars per episode for Two and a Half Men, a television show in which he pretty much plays himself. He obtained this salary, essentially, as a reward for brutalizing the mother of two of his children on their very first Christmas.

To put that into perspective: Jon Cryer, Sheen’s co-star makes $550,000. This is a large sum of money, but only half of what Sheen makes, and I’d bet about $500,000 is what Duckie required to be forced to work with Sheen and not tell the police about all the dead hookers.

Jon Hamm, a gentleman who in no way plays himself, beats women, shoots high profile Scientologists or frequents brothels, makes $100,000. Take that little factoid and kill yourself with it.

It sucks that a chodegargler like Charlie Sheen makes that much money. But he wouldn’t if people weren’t watching his show.

I have watched more Two and a Half Men then I’d like to mention, largely out of laziness when it come to changing the channel between How I Met Your Mother and Big Bang Theory, which incidentally is how I also know that Rules of Engagement would be a pretty awesome show if they fired everyone and made it the “Patrick Warburton and Megyn Price Sit Around And Be Awesome” hour. And I feel studied enough to categorically state that it is a bad show. It is heinously unfunny, displaying only the broadest and lowest common denominator kind of humor.

Apparently, that’s what you people are into.

When I say “you people” I am not being intelligence-racist. Some of my best friends like bad things. But in a world where an awesome movie like Scott Pilgrim made only a third of what “Stallone and Drago SMASH!:The Movie” and half of what “Julia Roberts Eats Gelato As An Act of Empowerment” made, a world where Mad Men receives weekly bitchslappings from the Kardashian sisters’ enormous thighs, and a world where Tina Fey makes less than a third of what Joe Estevez’s nephew makes, I’m pissed.

Be smarter, world. It’s not fair to the rest of us.

Courtney Enlow is a writer living in Chicago and working as a corporate shill to pay the bills. You can contact her atcourtney@hobotrashcan.com.

Hear hear! I, too, have watched more episodes of 2 1/2 men than I’d care to admit, and for the same lazy reasons you stated. It makes me sad. I hope that show ends with Duckie beating the shit out of Charlie, but that’s hoping for too much. In addition to Sheen being a horrible person, he has really bony shins that shine in the set lights. It’s creepy.

In the elevator story, at the end, all the characters gasp at the camera in horror, because the viewer is the devil. (Trey yells “Satan’s been watching us this whole time!” Trembling finger points, blood curdling screams. Fade to black.)

I’ve seen a few pieces of the show during the last couple of seasons. Sadly, the show seems to be getting even worse than it used to be. In the earlier seasons, the show was somewhat amusing because all of the characters were obnoxious in different ways, whereas now none of the characters have any redeeming bits of humanity left in them.

I feel pretty comfortable blaming Charlie Sheen for this, since his personal failures as a person are apparently what keep the audience coming back to the show.